Hot Pursuit
by Rebecca Hb
Summary: G1: Prowl has an obsession with catching Drag Strip.


**Hot Pursuit**

Prowl found Drag Strip sitting in the middle of a residential street, engine silent. The houses on either side of the street looked unmarked by anything more dangerous than mildew, and the problem with the roads had nothing to do with the Stunticon. Even the cars left parked in driveways were unharmed.

The cars that had been parked on the edges of the street were not so lucky. From the looks of the damage, Drag Strip had taken the time to ram into and run over each and every one of them several times before he parked himself in the street. It was a deliberate taunt from the Stunticon, Prowl knew; Drag Strip was gloating that the police Datsun couldn't respond fast enough to stop him.

Prowl measured his options as he lurked around the corner from the Stunticon. By the request of the local mayor, any further damage to the area was to be avoided if possible, but it was simply impossible to attack Drag Strip head-on. His forcefields would negate any of Prowl's attacks, but they would not protect the environment around him from fall-out. Nor, again, could Prowl shoot the street out from under the racecar, at the mayor's request.

To be honest, he was reluctant to shoot the streets up in the first place. They had quite enough problems, due to being built right next to the river and maintained by a poor Highway Department.

That, unfortunately, left chasing Drag Strip until the Stunticon's engine overheated, the Stunticon escaped, or the Stunticon deliberately targeted a human. The latter worried Prowl the most, the former was the preferred option.

A pity he had to resort to this, he thought as he pulled out onto the street with Drag Strip. Lasers from his headlight array flashed out and struck the Stunticon to no effect. "Drag Strip-"

The racecar's engine fired up, and the Stunticon took off without a word.

This was better than his usual response, Prowl decided. He preferred Drag Strip silent to Drag Strip gloating or Drag Strip transforming and pulling out his gravito-gun.

With an almost feral growl to his engine, Prowl raced after the Stunticon. He knew how Drag Strip liked to play - the racecar wouldn't stay in the residential neighborhoods long, not when they were this close to both a university campus and the Interstate system.

Thoughts flickered through his mind like meteorites burning up in the atmosphere - how much processor power he'd need to devote to keeping up with Drag Strip in the midst of the local traffic, how difficult it had gotten in recent years to evacuate the local areas, plans and counter-plans for anything the Stunticon might conceivably try... Each calculation and result came swifter than the last as he spun up more and more of his processors.

Chasing Drag Strip, he had found, required far more out of him than chasing one of the Decepticon jets. The jets, after all, did not insist on playing in traffic.

Prowl dodged in and out of traffic, changing lanes at frightening speeds. Every moment, it seemed as if he would hit someone, but he never so much as grazed another car. His thoughts felt like lightning and quicksilver, processors cycling, cycling. Perceptions, thoughts, and actions ran together until it seemed as if he was reacting simultaneously with changes in the traffic.

Ahead of him, Drag Strip took an abrupt right turn, a bare three car-lengths between the two of them. For some reason, the Stunticon was not destroying the human cars around him. That sent a mixed undercurrent of relief and worry through Prowl that added another feed to the tornado-whirl of his mind.

The Stunticon, from what he could determine, was playing with him.

Prowl felt like he all but skimmed, speeds well in excess of one hundred miles per hour. Unsafely fast for inside city limits, but not even half of what he was really capable of. The thought leapt up at almost the same instant as his accelerator pushed down further, and he narrowed the distance between himself and Drag Strip.

The racecar's spoiler flexed, gleaming in the sunlight, and the racecar actually decelerated slightly-

-Prowl abruptly found his front grill practically kissing the Stunticon's rear, and then the dratted racecar sped up again and changed lanes.

The Datsun gunned his engine and raced after Drag Strip, staying in the proper lane on the two-lane road. Devoting processor cycles to oncoming traffic would take precious cycles away from concentrating on the Stunticon.

As well as the road; Prowl had downloaded maps of this area, and they reported that there was a series of twisting curves between two small lakes just up ahead.

His auxiliary generators flared to life at the thought of how the chase would go in that sort of environment. Little to no room for error at these speeds and with these narrow roads.

"Hey, copper, I'm going to lose you in five minutes if you don't stop playing around!"

**Now** Drag Strip chose to speak. Lovely. His deep voice always seemed to surprise Prowl; it wasn't a common trait among brightly-colored Autobots. The lowest notes the racecar's voice sent a shiver through Prowl's metal. Too loud in the bass range, far too loud.

"I think you'll find me harder to get rid of than that, Stunticon." With that, Prowl flicked his sirens on for the first time as he chased the Stunticon into the narrow S-curves.

* * *

Several hours later, Prowl stalked in the entrance of the Ark, door-wings a'bristle. His armor was caked in dried mud and pondscum, and his memory banks kept throwing up the feeling of Drag Strip's hand on his chevron as the Stunticon tried to hold him under the water.

He wanted an hour in the washrack and then a mutual polishing session with Bluestreak. He did not want Sunstreaker and Sideswipe to meet him just inside the entrance.

"You look like slag," Sunstreaker pronounced, arms folded across his chest.

"Your Stunticon's playing a little rough, isn't he?" Sideswipe was trying not to grin, and mostly succeeding. If his spoiler hadn't given him away, Prowl might have suspected he was trying to be serious.

Might have.

Prowl looked at them levelly, until Sideswipe's spoiler stopped twitching with merriment and Sunstreaker glanced at the floor. "Do you two need something?"

"Just thinking, next time you try to chase him down, we'd come with. Make sure he doesn't get away." Sunstreaker raised his optics to meet Prowl's, likely all too aware of how the sunlight fell on his face from this angle. "He'll be out of the way, the Stunticons won't be able to form Menasor anymore, and you can stop running yourself ragged over his little solo crime spree."

Prowl's door-wings jerked sharply. "You most certainly will not!"

The two Lamborghinis blinked at him, Sideswipe taking a step back from the Datsun. "Prowl...?"

"Do not argue with me," Prowl said more calmly. "According to my assessment of these missions, anyone who is less than utterly precise in their driving will hurt the humans. As well, anyone who cannot keep total track of their environment, may get themselves hurt. As well, Drag Strip's individual felonies have dropped off rapidly in the last few months, and the reason for this has yet to be determined."

"Hey, we can handle ourselves-"

Prowl overrode Sunstreaker. "No arguments."

"But-"

"If you have any arguments, then please bring them up with Optimus."

The Lamborghinis glanced at each other, then Sideswipe offered him a smile. "Maybe when you're in a better mood, Prowl. I'll get our favorite Daisy of Death to donate some of his waxes to the cause. For the good of the Autobots, y'know?"

Sunstreaker stared at his brother as if he wasn't quite certain if the red car was serious or not.

"I'll keep that in mind," Prowl said as he swept past them towards the washracks.

Some days, Prowl wished that the Autobots had a similar washrack arrangement to the Decepticons, where every set of crew quarters had its own attached, instead of the communal racks that Autobots preferred. Time with only the water and chemicals drumming over him would let him sort out the thoughts in his head.

* * *

The Datsun adjusted the sprayers for his robot-mode height and let the initial torrent of warm water fall on his up-turned face. He'd come very close today, he'd had his hands **on** the Stunticon...

But he simply could not capture Drag Strip if he couldn't even apply Wheeljack's forcefield disruptors. It was decidedly annoying.

The inner door to the washroom opened and another mech stepped inside, humming some Earth tune to himself.

Prowl dimmed his optics. "Hello, Jazz."

"Prowl, m'man, I've been looking for you." Jazz sauntered over to the police car, but didn't bother to turn on one of the sprayers. He knew that Prowl knew that he didn't happen to wander into the washracks because he wanted to clean up. "Y'know, you're worryin' people."

Drag Strip, of course. "I don't see why they should be worried. I am merely pursuing the suspect in a very daunting string of felonies that the humans cannot handle themselves. It's nothing the Autobots haven't done in the past."

Jazz gave him an easy smile, his visor hiding any tell-tale flashes of his optics. "Pretty good guess about what's upsettin' 'em, Prowl."

Prowl frowned and turned away, unnerved by the spy driving word-spikes into him like that. It was hardly called for when he was just doing his duty.

"Smokey says you haven't been making any time to talk to him lately. I told him he just hasn't been around at the right time. I mean, a smart cat like you worryin' Smokescreen and Optimus both by not talkin' to our makeshift psychologist? Never gonna happen."

Prowl felt his door-wings twitch very slightly. "Of course not. Now, Jazz, I would like to finish washing up in peace."

"Sure, sure." Jazz grinned. "I know you've been running yourself ragged, Prowl. I'm not gonna get between you and a little relaxation."

"Quite." Prowl adjusted the knobs on the wall and the spray coming down changed from water to chemicals. He stood under that for a long time after Jazz left.

* * *

_The Stunticon stood under the light, hands cuffed behind his back and a deceptively thin chain connecting them to the shackles around his feet. His head was tipped back slightly, a tantalizing expanse of pale throat bared. He gleamed in the light, polished so fine that Prowl could see his face reflected in the racecar's metal._

_He circled Drag Strip in ever-constricting rounds, until he thought his door-wings would snap from the tension singing in his struts. Then the Stunticon's lips curved into a smirk, and Prowl's last shred of self-control snapped._

_He seized on that thin chain as a handhold, then crushed his mouth to Drag Strip's, bending the Stunticon back with the force of his kiss._

Prowl brutally ended that dream and sat up. He rarely recharged longer than it was necessary to run a defrag, and today would certainly be no exception. Especially with such a dream coming up.

As if he would ever abuse his authority in such a way.

Prowl began to unplug the recharge cables from his side. He still had reports from yesterday that he needed to go over, as well as preparing for whatever new crisis might explode today.

**The End**


End file.
